St. Mary Teacher Cecelia Knox poses for a picture with students from the Colegio Continental School in San Francisco de Macoris, Dominican Republic. Knox spent a week volunteer teaching at the school.

Written by

Michelle George
The Eagle-Gazette Staff

Imagine a school where Spanish-speaking students are taught lessons in English by non-licensed teachers and basic classroom necessities such as lined paper, up-to-date textbooks and calculators virtually are nonexistent.

Cecelia Knox, a teacher at St. Mary School, said she never fully appreciated just how good she and her students have it in the United States until she went to teach at Colegio Continental School, a private school in the Dominican Republic that lacks many of the educational tools she takes for granted every day.